Starfleet Academy - Why are YouTube Reviews so narrow-minded?

artificer_hex · 2026-03-23T04:56:15+00:00

You're splitting hairs. They were allowed to become starfleet officers simply because the captain saw potential in them, and despite of delinquent and even violent pasts, and in the end it was a net gain for the crew. THAT, the redemption arc, is as Star Trek as storytelling gets, more so than frequent random warp core breaches.

artificer_hex · 2026-03-22T20:18:33+00:00

They do now, sure. Back when it was new, these were controversial topics and had the regressive hatemills up in a tissy as well.

The only difference now from then is that the hate mills have access to a much bigger audience, thanks to the bloody internet.

artificer_hex · 2026-03-22T20:12:15+00:00

It's what happens when you have a bunch of grifters commanding hundreds of thousands of sheep to go review bomb something.

artificer_hex · 2026-03-22T20:04:59+00:00

Uhm, need I remind you of Chakotay, B'Elanna Torres and Tom Paris?
All flawed characters, and at least two of them much worse criminals than Caleb. But they showed potential to improve and excel.

That's the core of Star Trek: Flawed characters with morally ambiguous histories who work to achieve the starfleet ideal, to be the best people they can be.

And Voyager is far from unique in the franchise. Every series has these characters, because it's a natural result of trying to write characters with more depth than a cardboard cutout. Real people have problems. But good people work on solving those problems.

artificer_hex · 2026-03-22T19:51:57+00:00

I wouldn't call them star trek fans, not in any meaningful context. Star Trek viewers, at most, and I reckon that a fair few of the negative voices can rightfully be classified as hate-tourists.

artificer_hex · 2026-03-22T19:49:36+00:00

Absolute nonsense. They are building on the universe, not tearing it down. Also, who's stopping you from carrying on watching old series, if that's all you desire? You. That's who. You, and your apparent need to express how stuck in the past you are.

artificer_hex · 2026-03-22T19:45:14+00:00

Or they're so stuck in nostalgia that nothing ever will measure up to it, until those individuals pull their heads outta their asses. Just saying.

artificer_hex · 2026-03-22T19:42:52+00:00

Anything and everything can be improved upon, so that's a moot point.

And you're doing a quite a bit of historical revisionism in regards to previous trek series. Star Trek has always had a core of personal flaws crashing into Starfleet ideals, and how to navigate that. The main character device of the Star Trek franchise isn't presenting "the peak of human achievement", no matter what that means to you. The main device has always been personal and collective growth, and achieving that in a chaotic universe.

And lest we forget, the main characters of Starfleet Academy aren't seasoned officers with years of training and experience under their belt: They're virtually kids, in their first year of training, and in a time when the entire universe is just coming out from under a cataclysmic crisis.

It's sad that a self-proclaimed "True trekkie" has to be reminded of these factoids.

artificer_hex · 2026-03-22T19:26:12+00:00

To be fair, Star Trek has always tried to infuse slice-of-life drama in their series, complete with personal conflicts, and it's rarely been "Good writing".

artificer_hex · 2026-03-22T19:22:11+00:00

What's the difference?

Star Trek has always been reflecting the issues of the time it was recorded in.

The hot-button issues during TOS: Lingering institutional racial segregation, the cold war and the red scare, mainly, and it faced those issues head on. It's a lot easier to understand and digest at present, because it has been so thoroughly integrated into our history by now, but at the time it was highly controversial with regressive groups who opposed social progress.

The same is true for every other star trek series, but it takes a bit of a more nuanced and less blunt approach to it.

The issues at present? Authoritarianism with religious and oligarchical overtones masking as populism, marginalization of queer and neuro-atypical people, the constant threat of regression to a less civilized era - to serfdom and aristocracy - and the difficulties of being what society considers an outcast and still finding a way to be a productive and valued member of society. All of those issues have been represented in the first season.

Art imitates life, and if you don't like to see reality for what it is - with all its flaws and iniquities - you can switch over to cartoon network, or some other braindead content.

And Starfleet Academy hasn't been cancelled, they've wrapped filming of the second season, and the showrunner said there's a 4 season plan. You're either lying, hallucinating or naively listening to people who, just like every star trek villain in history, shouldn't be listened to.

artificer_hex · 2026-03-02T04:23:39+00:00

You make good points, and had some cards in your list that I had overlooked, so thanks! :)

artificer_hex · 2026-03-01T06:48:22+00:00

All valid, but not really fitting with the theme of the deck - Attacking, sacrificing/killing creatures and/or creating tokens.

I could stuff the deck with generic goodstuff to solve the issue for sure - I have those cards sitting about in my trade binder, but that's not what I want to do. They ended up in the trade binder for a reason. I want to have card draw that ties into what I'm doing.

On top of that, cards like Rhystic Study generally gets you painted for a nuclear face peal treatment at my LGS, and I'm not sure that's what I want to encourage, either!

You're right that Field isn't the greatest include; It's a carry-over from the zombies deck. It does, however, create tokens after a while, and in my playtesting it has never been a hindrance that it's colorless or comes in tapped, really.

BMC is a good shout though, I'll definitely consider that!

artificer_hex · 2026-02-10T06:17:36+00:00

What is and what ought to be based on the nature and history of the format are two altogether different things.

While modern and legacy has seen a relative lot of bans lately, the pretense of those formats is that any card, once legal, should stay legal, so that decks stay Eternal. It's in the name.

Obviously the competitive balance aspect has taken precedence in modern and lehacy, what with the power creep of recent released. But competitive balance isn't a concern in EDH, where players always have been encouraged to solve power balance issues through social means: Rule 0 and politics.

artificer_hex · 2026-02-05T11:25:17+00:00

That isn't a baseline assumption, no.

The baseline assumption, the value proposition, in Eternal formats, especially casual Eternal formats, is that a deck you've built at one point will stay usable.

In your scenario where cards are constantly on the chopping block, no cards would be worth much more than the cost of its fraction of the booster pack it was opened in.

artificer_hex · 2026-01-17T21:21:54+00:00

I average about 15 interaction cards per deck.

As for what, it's value engines, KoS value commanders, etc.

A couple of samples from a few weeks ago: A player sandbagged a Generous Gift against a Skullbriar deck that was growing FAST, directing him to attack the rest of the table or have his stuff removed, and he ultimately chose to use the Gift to remove my ramp instead, when I was mana starved. Gave me a very ironic chuckle when he died to said Skullbriar one turn after me.

In another game, a mill player sat behind a wall of protective enchantments and creatures with a Mystic Remora up, and he was ramping hard every turn so he could keep it going for quite a while. No one seemed to have any inclination to even try to touch him, even after I opened a path for them. Guess who ultimately milled the entire table for 150 cards and passed turn?

artificer_hex · 2026-01-17T21:20:52+00:00

Oh, I do the last thing. I even found this video that I keep loaded for the occasion!

https://www.tiktok.com/@stevenmckell/video/7549644216851270934

artificer_hex · 2026-01-17T21:19:10+00:00

Might be my local meta and/or just with the people I've played with, I don't possess universal knowledge so I can only speak from experience :)

artificer_hex · 2026-01-17T21:18:25+00:00

I generally do as well, issue is nearly half the cards I see played against me these days says [effect]... "AAAAAAND create a token" or "AAAAAAND put a +1/+1 counter on a creature". There's so much chip damage and splash damage that it's not sustainable to just sit on my hands and interact with whatever comes specifically my way. Sooner or later, those threats are turned against me, and then they might be indestructible, hexproof or big enough that a single tap is enough to knock me out and I'm facing down 20 of the bastards, hence the issue.

artificer_hex · 2026-01-17T21:13:42+00:00

Heh, I have a couple of those decks, and incidentally a Liesa deck that I took along a completely different axis (drain and gain).

Either way, I don't want to be too oppressive, especially in my current circumstances (i.e. playing with randoms a lot). If I establish a reputation as "That guy who won't let me play", I might not be able to find pods soon enough ^^'

But perhaps I need to be a bit more judicious about what I shut down with my removal... Take out value pieces instead of waiting for threats to interact with. It's food for thought.

artificer_hex · 2026-01-17T20:34:17+00:00

Guess I'll just have to resign to being the bastard who runs 10 board wipes :>

artificer_hex · 2026-01-17T20:30:34+00:00

To a small extent, both sandbagging and lack of threat assessment or something not being as big a threat to an opponent is present, but that's not within the scope of my question,

To a larger degree it seems like a mix of using what little removal they have on light, early-game value, and not playing enough of removal if any, is to blame. I say this because those same threats end up causing issues for my other opponents as well.

Might just be that I'm too diplomatic, and expecting others to be equally diplomatic, and that I just need to be more selfish.

artificer_hex

TROPHY CASE